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He sighed. “Sometimes there is no answer, Curse Keeper. Sometimes there is only the question, and it is up to you to supply your own answer.”
“I think that’s bullshit,” I said, even though there was a certain Yoda-like wisdom in his response. “I think that’s your answer because you don’t know and you’re not willing to admit it.”
He laughed and climbed to his feet. “Enough questions for one night. I need rest to face your next interrogation. You are like a human toddler with your endless questions.”
“How long will you be around to help me?”
He stood next to me, inches separating us, but I still had to look down at him. His head didn’t even come to my shoulder. “I will help you as long as you need me, but once you don’t, I will be gone.”
“Okay,that’svague.”
He hopped off the porch and started walking toward the woods.
“Tsagasi, one more thing and then I’ll go inside.” He twisted at the waist to look back at me. I needed an answer to a question I’d already asked and he’d left unanswered. I took his previous advice and rephrased it. “What do you get out of helping me?”
His grin faded. “Survival.”
Chapter15
The next morning, I gasped in shock when I reached the door to Myra’s apartment.
There were marks on it.
Myra had never shown any interest in the markings I put on the doors to the inn each night other than concern for my safety. But the most perplexing part of it was that these marks weren’t the same ones I used. While they were primitive, they were mostly lines and circles. What were they, and why had she started using them?
I lifted my hand to knock, but Myra opened the door before my fisted hand could connect with the wood. A smile spread across her face. “Ellie, I’m so happy to see you.”
My palm burned when I crossed the threshold, but the sensation stopped as quickly as it had started. I turned around to check behind me. Myra’s apartment had an inside entrance, and the hall was completely bare.
“Is everything okay?” Myra asked with a worried tone.
“My marked tingled.”
“Do you think something’s out there?”
“No, doesn’t look like it.” I turned to face her. “It happened when I walked through the door. What are those marks?”
“Oh!” She grimaced and looked embarrassed. “I confess that once I got here, hundreds of miles from you, I got a little paranoid. Steven found a Native American shaman to come by and start marking my door.”
“These marks aren’t Croatan.”
“No, but I figured the gods and spirits this far inland were more likely to be associated with another tribe.” She shut the door and headed to the small kitchen that was separated from the tiny living room by a short bar.
“So are they Cherokee?”
Myra grabbed a pot of coffee and poured some into a mug. “I’m not sure. Steven called a Cherokee shaman, but he told me he blended in some other local tribal signs to be safe.”
Worry knotted my stomach. “Maybe I should mark your doors before I leave. Just to be sure. I heard about the missing Duke students.” That was the only reason I was here instead of with David after all we’d been through the previous night. In light of Allison’s death and the missing students, I had a possibly not-so-irrational fear that Myra was in danger. I needed to see her for myself. A phone call wasn’t good enough.
She shook her head, tsking. “Everyone on campus is quite upset about it, justifiably of course.” She poured creamer into my cup and handed it to me. “That’s why I decided to mark my door. Steven thinks I’m crazy.” She rolled her eyes with a grin. “In Manteo, we explained the marks on the doors as part of the colony experience, but here…” She looked up and chuckled. “I told him it was because I was homesick.”
“Good thinking.”
Myra grabbed a basket and moved past me to set it on the table. “While I’m grateful for your offer to re-mark my door, I think I should keep these ones. Yours will fade, but the shaman can come back and redo his work every week.”
“Okay…I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
She offered me a soft smile. “Ellie, that’s what I love about you. You’ll do anything to make sure the people you love are safe.” She spun around and returned to the kitchen, leaving me standing on the opposite side of the bar.
